Ask:
We had our living/family/great room painted this past year (February, I think). We weren't thinking and had the painters use flat paint. As you can imagine, there are sections of it now bearing scuff marks, fingerprints, you name it. I have tried the Mr. Clean Magic Erasers but they seem to wash some of the paint off and leave it looking smudged. We still have a LOT of leftover paint and I'd like to try to do a touch-up in some areas. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to do this the best way? I was in Home Depot recently and saw these little dohickeys made by Rubbermaid that are a little bottle you fill with paint and attached on top is a small roller. You can remove the roller when you are done and put a top on the bottle of remaining paint to keep it from drying out. Has anyone tried something like this? With the holidays coming up and company streaming in and out, I thought this would be a good time to do this. I have learned my lesson, though - next time SEMI-GLOSS!!!!
Answer:
I hear ya about the flat paint! My mom did this one year- not hinking and let's just say she had to redo the kitchen in about 3 months time!
As for the rubbermaid paint keeper thing- my mil uses that thing (I forget the name), she was touching up all over her living room and dining room a week before Thanksgiving. You could not even tell that she used it (as in a good thing!)!
Answer:
Flat paint touches up very easy and those rubbermaid things work awesome. When you repaint try an eggshell, but be carefull if you "touch up" eggshell or semi-gloss over and over the spots get shinier than the rest of the wall. Don't waste your time trying to wash flat paint it just doesn't work
Answer:
I asked DH, a professional painter and he is never very fond of painting gagets. He said that you should just be able to take a brush and dab it into the wall. It will give it some texture so it doesn't look like one brush stroke and will help it blend into the existing paint job. He explained it to me as just jabbing the paintbrush into the wall...although, probably not a very forceful jab
He suggests painting with eggshell (he uses Benjamin Moore super spec) as you can just wipe scuff marks with a rag and doesn't need to be touched up. But flat paint is the easiest to touchup. Semi-gloss is difficult to touch up and if you do more than one coat, you usually need to do it over the course of a couple days.